Start a Cleaning Business » pricing

How to Price Your Cleaning Services

steph — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:08:56 +0000

In putting up your Cleaning services business you have to think of the prices of your services. That is a major concern for you are not just putting up a business for nothing. Everyone has to make a profit. That is the point of going into business. But if you are new in this kind of venture, you probably don’t have an idea of how much to charge.

Cleaning services either charge by the hour, by the room, by a fixed rate depending on the extent of service rendered. Some companies charge by the square foot. To give you an idea some cleaning companies charge a rate of around .12 to .25 cents per square foot. This depends on the area where you are located and the type of job you are made to do. The more difficult the type of cleaning service asked from you will definitely entitle a higher charge.

To give you a clearer picture of what the on going rates are do a little research. Look into the rates other companies are charging. You can search in their websites or make a phone call inquiry. You’re prices should be competitive. Don’t come across as too cheap or people might think you’re not professional.

The Essentials of Starting your Own Business

admin — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:00:12 +0000

When it is time to start a cleaning business there are a great number of factors that must be considered. Regardless of the specialty service that you will be offering the considerations are still present. Considerations such as:

Will you hire any employees?
Equipment
Supplies
Cost
Pricing
Advertising

Pricing

Pricing can be a monotonous and lengthy procedure particularly if you don’t have a flair for working with numbers. Pricing might not be a concept that you perfect the first time around but it is essential that you get as close as you possibly can. Bidding too high can cost you jobs and bidding too low costs you money. Neither is an attractive option.

Make sure that you are spot on with your pricing by doing things such as evaluating each completed job and comparing it against your estimate. Break down all the costs and see the true profit margin. Estimating labor is an important aspect of being in business for yourself just as accurately estimating operating costs is.

There are a few factors that have to be calculated when it comes to pricing:

The cost of labor & materials
Overhead
Profit

Not until after you have a track record for comparison purposes can you begin to be certain that the prices you are setting are solid and reflect a profit ratio. Until then you will have to base everything in terms of pricing to estimating. This includes labor and materials and is usually determined in a set price per hour.

Material Costs

Material costs are separate; they do not include labor and are just the operating costs that are essential when you are starting your own cleaning business. The best way to determine these rates is by looking over the cost of your operating costs in the past. To calculate overhead rates add up every expense for an entire year only leaving out labor and materials. Divide that total by the full price of labor and materials.

The number that remains is your overhead rate. Use industry averages until you are able to establish your own numbers. It is possible for you to calculate your profits and add them into your estimate by relating a portion of revenue to the collective expenditures of labor, materials and overhead.

Final Advice

Always keep your customers abreast of all specials, information or additional services that you are or will be offering. Remember, they can’t use your ideas if they do not know about them. Use flyers that share your specials and services. These are fantastic ways to market your business and are also very affordable as well.

The overall market for cleaning services is incredible but you have got to settle on the particular niche that you will shoot for. It is this particular niche that you will essentially target and then market it hard. You will have to examine the geographic vicinity you desire to serve. Make sure that the area that you plan to target has an adequate number of prospective customers.

Pricing Services for Your Own Cleaning Business

Jeff W — Thu, 28 May 2009 01:03:03 +0000

How could someone really know what to charge for his service? In service industry, it is really hard to determine the right price that can be allocated to a specific labor or service. Since labor is an intangible commodity, one cannot really decide upon the pricing of the cost of labor hastily. But despite of that, labor pricing can still be understood even one step at a time, and so is the case for designating fees for cleaning services.

If you’re planning to be a part of the existing cleaning service industry, one thing that you can do to calculate the price of a cleaning service is to conduct a small survey of the various cleaning businesses outside your place. Ask them how much fees they charge to customers and what are their basis in determining their price. Set your own house as a concrete example and ask them how much cost it would render them if they have to clean a specific space measures with the appropriate cleaning equipment needed. Note down the most important details that they would be telling you and try to assimilate all the figures until you have come up with an idea of the appropriate pricing for your cleaning service.

Subsequently, you will need to determine your labor cost, that is, to calculate your expenses for your materials or the cleaning supplies cost. Visit or phone all the possible local stores you know and tell them that you’re planning to have a cleaning business. Canvass the different prices for cleaning supplies including cleaning tools, cleaning chemicals and solutions, and other related products. After you have already the list of all the need cleaning materials, then head straight away to the store that offers the most considerable prices.

To test the products that you bought and to estimate how much of it would be consumed in cleaning houses, you could use them on to clean on your own house. After you have used them, you can now determined how much area that a specific product or chemical solution could clean and therefore could help you determine the cost of doing your cleaning business.

Afterwards, try to conduct inspections of the various cleaning services in your own area. Evaluate the different types of cleaning services they offer and think of a possible competitive advantage you could have. For example, if you find out that there are only a number of cleaning businesses in your place, then there is a great chance that you will be at the leading edge. However, if your area has already a lot of this kind of business, then you should think of a possible advantage over your competitors. One good choice is to specialize in a specific kind of cleaning or offer an innovative service.

Finally, you also must not forget to include in the estimate other related labor costs like taxes based on the salary that you receive and other costs for the maintenance, replacement, and repair of your cleaning tools and equipment.

See: How to start a cleaning business

Cleaning Services – How to Make A Bid Estimate

Jeff W — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Pricing your Cleaning services comes with practice – in your own home that is. Practicing your cleaning skills at home is advantageous in a lot of ways. For instance, you can correctly list down how much time you need to finish clean up tasks that you will be offering to your clients. Aside from that, you can also make a list of how much cleaning products you will be using up for a single cleaning. Additionally, you can create a detailed list of the chores you need to offer. And more importantly, you can estimate how many hours you can keep on cleaning in a day without overly exhausting yourself.

All of these can be used you create your own bid estimate sheet. A bid estimate is a form your client fills out for you to know exactly what cleaning services they require. Residential and commercial cleaning have a lot of similarities but you may want to create separate bid estimate sheets for the two for specialized cleaning unique to each.

Generally, you will need a letter head of your business for the bid estimate sheet. This gives it a more professional look. Put in your business name on top of the page, and then you can put your name, contact numbers, physical address, an electronic mail address, or maybe your own website address at the bottom. Have your logo printed on your bid estimate sheet also; you can place it on the upper left corner or watermark it in the middle. You can do all of these through software in your personal computer.

Have blanks or boxes for the customer to fill out their name, address, mobile, home and office phone numbers, their e-mail address and the person you will be speaking with for the cleaning service. For residences, it may be the spouse or any other person living in the home; for offices it could be the manager.

You will also need to have the cleaning schedule cleared out, whether it is a one time cleaning task or a regular one. Just put in boxes for weekly, monthly or every fortnight cleaning schedules. The day in the week should also be specified and the exact date of the start of the cleaning. You should also put in a blank for the exact time you can start and end the cleaning.

Next, you will need a detailed table of the tasks involved for each area of the house or the office.

For houses, create a section for all the rooms of the house and the cleaning chores to be performed in each area. Have a space or a blank beside each task wherein the customer can tick off the chores they want done. For the office, it is almost the same except you will need to have an area designated for cubicles and private offices.

Both of the bid estimate sheets should have the hourly rates you will charge for each section or area of the space that needs cleaning. Bid estimates should be discussed with the client before and after a job is done to ensure agreement between both parties.

Cleaning Services – Find The Right Price For Your Services?

Jeff W — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:43:13 +0000

In any service business, the right pricing may be hard to achieve at first because there are no products to speak off. In fact, you are pricing the cost of your labor and this is a precious commodity. However, simple research can actually be a big help in this task. Designating a fee for your services need not be perfect, an educated guess would suffice. You will have time to correct it later on when you start calling for cleaning service bids.

The first thing you need to investigate on is how much your competition is charging. Call up various listed cleaning businesses outside your area, just in case you slip up and admit that you are thinking of establishing your own cleaning business, and ask for their fees. Make your own house an example because they might ask for specific space measures, areas needed to be cleaned and equipment that the cleaning task might need. List down a few quotations and average the figures for you to have a clearer idea of the pricing involved in the existing cleaning industry.

Next, you will need to have a long list of how much cleaning supplies cost. These include cleaning chemicals and solutions, cleaning tools and equipment, and other related products. You can visit the local stores for this and you can tell them your plans outright. They would be very much willing to help you out since you are now a prospective client. In fact, they might even make your job easier since they can give you a brochure of their products.

If you want a better idea on how much of these products you will probably use up in cleaning houses, buy a few products and clean your own house. List down all the products you use up and see how much area they could clean. Afterwards, you will have a strong basis for your fees for the cleaning products and you now have the opportunity to price your labor.

After that, make quick run of the list of cleaning services in your area. As the law of supply and demand goes, the more supplies the lesser the price for it. So, it would be to your advantage if the cleaning industry in your town is lacking, that means you can charge higher prices for your services. But if your area has more than its share of cleaning businesses, you might want to specialize in a few areas of cleaning or offer a new service. Aside from that, you still need to have a competitive price to get your foot inside the market.

Lastly, you need to remember that you are in business to make profits. As a business, you only not need to purchase cleaning products and equipment, you also need to pay your taxes and receive a salary. Moreover, you need to save up some cash for the maintenance, repairs, or replacement of your own cleaning equipment.

See: Start a cleaning service

Commercial Cleaning Services – How to Price your Janitorial Cleaning Offers

Jeff W — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 02:10:34 +0000

Start up businesses can sometimes have a problem in pricing their wares. With your commercial cleaning service, it might just be as hard, if not even more so. Instead of just focusing on pricing services, you will also need to figure in how much the equipment you will use cost (both purchase price, and maintenance, plus savings to buy new ones), the other materials you will use (like rags, and cleaning agents), and the labor costs. However, you are going to have to accept this challenge since your business’s success will depend on a competitive price.

Remember that you built a business to get profits so you cannot just price your services at a low price, you will need to do a lot of researches and investigations on the matter. These researches should include the market you are aiming for. If for example your target market are small offices, then more likely than not, you will have to price your services in the lower range than if you target clients that are bigger.

Then you will need to know how to price your equipment if the clients do not have their own. You will need a fixed rate, like a rental, for your tools. The other materials that are used up like chemicals and carpet shampoos will have to be priced individually.

Then you will need a thorough check on your competitor’s prices. Yi will probably be better off checking service costs online since you could cover more ground than by driving around town and talking to other cleaning service office personnel, or talking to them an inquiring through the phone.

In pricing for individual consumers, you will want to consider the following factors:

1. What type of location needs to be cleaned – This could be a commercial or office location, industrial, manufacturing or warehouse locations, retails, medical facility, restaurants/bars/ or clubs, schools. This would figure in the pricing because each of these would require different types of cleaning styles.

2. If the company already has an existing janitorial service provider, and if this would be a one time deal, or if they are considering changing their existing provider – It is a business and everything is fair. You can offer a low introductory rate, but make sure that the company would understand the concept of the offer. Ask the existing costs they have for their old service provider and see if you can match it or top it.

3. How big is the space that needs to be cleaned and what type of equipment and furniture are there – Bigger spaces would mean more to clean, more furniture means the same. That is the reason why you need to now these. You’ll also have to ask if the clients prefer any specific brands of cleaning agents, chemicals, shampoo, sanitizers, and deodorizers.

4. Finally, you will need to ask if the cleaning job is needed immediately or can be scheduled at a later date. Rush jobs could cost more than ones that can wait.

See: How to start a commercial cleaning service